Photographing The Beauty of Digital Glitches

Kathleen Flood — Mar 18 2011

According to his bio, Ishac Bertran is inspired by “the little formative details of life” and has recently been exploring the gap between photography—a medium that, in its purest form, is carefully planned out and executed—with that of generative art, whose mathematical and computed nature gives way to unforeseen and random glitches. In his mind, those calculated accidents are a thing of beauty, and highlighted in his series of aptly named photographs: Generative Photography.

Using Processing, he projects digital drawings onto a screen in a dark room and then captures the movements between frames with a camera using a long exposure. Imperfect renderings from the projector combined with the delayed frame rate of the video signal and refresh rate of the projector make the art almost impossible to recreate, yet Bertran manages to capture their short-lived moments.

Betran says, “Glitches are unique, almost impossible to reproduce, and usually imperceptible to the naked eye. This technique gives shape to these digital glitches and captures their unpredictable beauty.”

We have to admit that sometimes technology can be a pain, like when your wireless connection is too slow, a program bugs out, or something simply stops working for no apparent reason. It’s nice to see that technology’s imperfections—like those of humans—don’t always have to be ugly. in To see more of Betran’s work visit his blog.